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Health benefits of solar cooking

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Last edited: 4 August 2022      

Cooking over traditional open fires presents numerous health risks to the user and those around them. Solar cookers not only help to mitigate exposure to harmful emissions, but they also provide several other health-related benefits.

The problem[]

Significant health dangers exist for those living without access to widely available, inexpensive, and clean cooking fuels. Relying on traditional fuelwood and other biomass for cooking is often coupled with cooking indoors over an open three-stone fire, leading to exposure of dangerous emissions. Regular use of traditional cooking fires also presents other risks to users and those around them as well.

Household air pollution[]

An estimated 2.4 billion people globally cook over fires fueled by biomass, such as wood, dried vegetation, and animal dung.[1] The emissions from these sources of fuel are extremely toxic and can lead to severe health complications, especially when they are concentrated in an indoor environment where ventilation is poor. The World Health Organization reports that 3.8 million people die every year from diseases related to exposure to household air pollution, including pneumonia, heart disease, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), stroke, and lung cancer.[1]

Pregnant women who are regularly exposed to household air pollution are also at a greater risk of their child suffering from low birthweight or possibly even a stillbirth.[2]

Dangers posed to women and girls[]

When fuelwood cannot be purchased, due to either availability or affordability, it is often the women and girls in a family who are tasked with gathering cooking fuel alternatives (branches, dried vegetation, animal dung, etc.). Not only does this prevent them from taking part in other activities, such as education and economic opportunities, but it potentially exposes them to physical danger. This can happen in areas with nearby refugee camps. Locals see the women coming into their territory and taking from an already limited supply of fuelwood. It is not uncommon for women and girls to be attacked, including sexual violence, while collecting cooking fuel as they are forced to leave the safety of their home and surrounding area. With increased travel distances for those tasked with gathering wood, accelerates deforestation as resources become more scare.

Waterborne illness[]

Without reliable access to inexpensive cooking fuel, the choice of how and when to use available fuel can be a difficult one. As cooking daily meals will more often than not be a family’s top priority, other needs, such as water purification, can unfortunately be left unaddressed.

Those who live with a lack of access to affordable fuel often also live in areas where clean water is not readily available. Without sufficient cooking fuel, water is often consumed without being purified, which can lead to waterborne illnesses such as cholera and other diarrheal diseases. These diseases are responsible for the deaths of over 500,000 children annually and are the second leading cause of death of children under the age of five.[3]

Main article: Water pasteurization

A Solution[]

Solar cookers are not only emission-free, and as such, are not contributors to any household air pollution-related diseases. They do not require any fuel to be collected and can act as a low-cost water pasteurization devices.

The health benefits of solar cookers include:

  1. Improved health outcomes among users and those around them due to reduced exposure to toxic emissions from cooking fires.
  2. Women and girls, often tasked with the dangerous chore of collecting fuel for cooking fires, do not need to venture out and risk attack as solar energy is the only cooking fuel required.
  3. A reduction in waterborne illness as solar cookers provide an economically-viable means to pasteurize water, making it safe to drink.

News[]

Reports[]

See also[]

  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 Household air pollution and health - WHO
  2. ↑ Indoor air pollution from solid fuels and risk of low birth weight and stillbirth - WHO
  3. ↑ Diarrhoeal disease - WHO
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